Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Get Out The Tissues
I needed a couple. I saw the link via Jen’s and had heard of the post from Deb before that, as it had left her worked up for the rest of the day after she read it.
Tearjerker or not, it’s worth your time to read if you haven’t been there already from one of the many other blogs linking it. It’s good to have a reminder of what we fight for, and of just how manifestly evil the malignancy on civilization we fight can be.
Go read Love In A Time Of Danger please.
Recommended
As in heavenly yumminess!
Sandies Fruit Delights, strawberry cheesecake flavor, from Keebler.
The apple flavor is good, but nowhere close to the strawberry cheesecake.
Business Pundit
Since I see it remains down this morning, I thought I would put out a heads up that Business Pundit should be back sometime today. It was a bandwidth overage that has been rectified, and the rest is just host company latency.
Confident Dry and Secure
In the delightful tradition of questions such as whether you fold or scrunch your toilet paper, Jen is asking about your deodorant usage. Just in case you missed it yesterday.
Still Poor
*Sighs In Relief*
Nobody won the Mega Millions jackpot. Wow! Lucky for me, since I could not have. Never got around to getting a ticket for last night’s drawing.
So now it’s up to $280 million estimated. I could use that.
Cassini
You aren’t alone Jeff. I find it exciting too!
We finally get to learn whether there are sentient inorganic beings on Titan, after all. Or not.
It Must Stop Somewhere
This is just so wrong. You don’t sue people who did their best to help in an otherwise completely hopeless survival situation. You don’t sue a samaritan. The kid was effectively dead from the second he tumbled over the side. The rescue created the possibility that the virtual certainty of death might be avoided. Amazing!
Let’s not piss off the volunteers, eh? Nobody has to be a volunteer rescue worker. We’ll either end up with fewer such people, or there will be a larger proportion of situations that are “impossible” for them to help in, or where liability-avoiding caution will rule the day.
Update:
Looks like Jeff is on the story too, and he got it from Overlawyered.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Period Space Space
I am as vehement in my support of two spaces after a period as Dave is about one. What do you think?
No, wait. It doesn’t matter, because I am right. That still leaves me curious how many of you are on the side of optimal readability, and how many of you care nothing for readability or even tradition.
Could this be the next “it’s yellow! No, it’s green!” comments section? Stay tuned…
Summah Traffic, Had Me a Crash, Summah Traffic, Can’t Go So Fast
I drive the length of I-93 whenever I go to my father’s house in Vermont. Get on it south of Boston, drive until it ends at I-91 in St. Johnsbury.
There is a certain stretch of the highway in the southern part of New Hampshire that drives me crazy, it so badly needs to be widened. I don’t really notice it southbound, but northbound the traffic tends to breeze along, then bottleneck, then breeze along again. The stretch where it bottlenecks is too close to civilization and too heavily trafficked to be two lanes.
Summah people notwithstanding, you can’t put the traffic back in the bottle, so you may as well make it safer and more efficient. I drove through there in a near-blizzard one time. Guess which stretch had the bulk of the accidents and cars off the road.
I greet news of a widening with approval in this case.
Speaking of roads overdue for widening, route 3 between 128 and the Cape has needed widening for the past couple decades. They are just now working on part of it. Two lanes each way doesn’t cut it until you get past Kingston, heading south. Three all the way to the canal would be reasonable, and four would be reasonable until well below Weymouth.
Now route 24, which used to be the fast, spacious road, is catching up and becoming traffic jammy all too regularly. There may be a limit to how far widening can go to making it more efficient, but we haven’t reached it yet.
“Don’t Film, Fabricate”
Deskmerc had great fun coming up with “documentaries” and film posters for each, inspired by his new documentary slogan: ”Don’t Film, Fabricate.“ I especially liked the third one.
Neither Steve Verdon nor John Kerry’s brain were harmed in the making of his post.
Don’t Desert Me Now
Which Extremity of the World Are You?
From the towering colossi at Rum and Monkey.
This flowed from Jennifer here
Housing Bubble?
Arnold Kling says unlikely, and has an explanation of why, ending with five points of good financial advice (skip down to them even if the economic details earlier in the article bore you). He believes the bubble is more likely in the bond market, and explains things like the difference between real and nominal interest rates.
Perhaps my feeling that there is a bubble, at least regionally, has less to do with sound economics than with personalizing the absurd notion that I will ever manage to handle payments on the order of $2000 a month.
June 28 Carnival of the Capitalists Is Up
The latest CotC is up at EGO. Be aware that BlogSpot has been doing its thing to this blog during the past day, so at any given time it may be up, may be down, and if the latter, you’ll want to try again in a few.
Next week’s Carnival of the Capitalists will be at pc4media. Send your entries to capitalists -at- elhide.com.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Did You Read It?
My amazing wife’s post below this one. Did you read it? No? Well do it.
If I were on my own blog, reading this on her blog and we had never met, I would be linking with the kind of flags and rockets fanfare normally reserved for, say, a superior Rachel Lucas post. Consider this post to be that kind of reaction. If you saw its length and skittered away, stop! Come back! Think “Bill Whittle” or that dude in Minnesota and throw away any reservations about length.
I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did… Alas, now I must return to working on this server, not doing a quick check of the blog from it.
So.
I know I’ve more or less stopped posting, and it really isn’t an intentional thing. It’s just that I can’t take politics anymore, and pretty much everything in life is political on one level or another, so I’m not left with much to talk about.
I can’t take politics anymore because the last of the attempts at honesty have gone out of the thing, and we’re down to side A trying to brainwash side B into believing that Side B has already been brainwashed by the evil leaders of side B, with--and this is the part that’s wearing me out--absolutely no reference to reality. (For those who will surely think to themselves that it is in fact side B doing the brainwashing...well, that’s part of what I mean by ‘no reference to reality.’
Facts have become irrelevant to an increasingly large group of people, and it frightens me.
The blogosphere, of course, has featured folks from side A acting beyond wacky for quite some time, and I dismissed their behavior, thinking that of course those who were motivated enough to actually blog about such matters were probably prone to a rhetorical flourish here and there, and I ignored it. It has, however, since spread to people close to me whom I would have thought would be immune to it. I have a very good friend who I can’t even bear to talk to anymore because of her conviction that a certain overweight filmmaker is more credible than the President of the United States. No amount of information, regardless of source (I quoted Clinton at her without making a dent), can sway her conviction that George W. Bush is the embodiment of evil.
This so-called friend actually asked me not to vote.
Bejus.
You know, I hate to sound melodramatic, but the way I figure it we’re more or less engaged in a struggle for the future of Western Civilization here. We take one path and live happily ever after, we take the other and we get to play Dark Ages again. I tend to think that in the long run we’ll head the right way, but the thought of taking any detours just exhausts me. I don’t exactly fear a Kerry presidency, I just get terribly tired even thinking about it. For that matter, I don’t even fear the folks like my friend (though the collectivism at the heart of her politics is what will destroy us if anything will). I really do believe that we’re the good guys, and that we’ll get ourselves straightened out and the values we’ve traditionally held dear will triumph in the end. It’s just a matter of time and carnage.
You see, that’s the bit that makes me tired. I don’t really believe that John Kerry would actually allow this country to be destroyed on his watch. I really don’t. I think that what he would ultimately have to do during his term in office wouldn’t look that much different in the end from what Bush would have to do. What I am convinced of, however, is that he would only do those things when forced to by events, and I would far rather be proactive than reactive (though what we are doing now is reactive in the sense that 9/11 made many things apparent that weren’t so apparent before).
I am exhausted by the thought that it may take one or more additional attacks at at least a 9/11 level of devastation before we get serious all over again about putting a stop to it. I fear that it may take losing a city. I think that our best chance of avoiding that is to continue on the path we’ve started, and I don’t think interrupting that progress is in our best interests.
And despite the support from the little corner of the blogosphere I hang out in, I’m starting to be a bit nervous about whether we’re going to pull off the interstate here and take the two-lane scenic route. It may be more attractive, but sometimes you really can’t afford to kick back and take it easy. Sometimes you’ve got to just get the miles behind you.
There are an awful lot of people who have fallen back into that 9/10 mindset. I can’t really blame them. I’d rather be there myself. I’m well aware that I’m lucky to have experienced the bit of history that I did, that we lived in an amazing time there for a little while between the end of the Cold War and September 11, 2001, when the threat of large-scale nuclear disaster had lifted and a body could feel 100% safe from the terrors of war simply by the grace of being on American soil. That’s the feeling I want to have again, dammit. That’s a feeling I want my daughter to someday know.
The problem at the moment seems to be that it is such an attractive feeling that folks are going right on ahead with it now, at a time when it is unfounded and therefore dangerous. Unfortunately, this danger is multiplied many-fold by the fact that the natural allies of those who do not believe that there is a continuing threat are those who believe that there is, but that it can only be mitigated through self-flagellation--by changing who we are as a people--which is the very thing that we are fighting to prevent. The first attitude is regrettable. The second is not only dangerous, but nauseating in its failure to recognize its own irony: it would, if successful, eliminate its own right to exist. If you walk down that path far enough, you find a Dark Age.
I don’t, as I’ve said, believe that we’ll get to that point, but the natural alliance between those who see no danger and those who misidentify it is something I find worrisome. It has seemed lately that what used to be a mere fringe on the left has become more of a decorative border, and soon I fear that it it will become most of the garment. A year ago, the friend I mentioned above thought that same-sex marriage would be a very good thing, and that the War was also a very good thing, that such things went hand in hand as freedom and freedom secured. Eight months ago, she decided that same-sex marriage was more important than the War, and changed her party affiliation. Now she is convinced that George W. Bush is a greater threat to freedom than the folks who are intent on killing us.
I’m abusing my poor friend here to make the point, but I think by now we’ve probably all seen it happen. The far left seems to be acting like the red sock that somehow makes its way into a load of whites. (Some would argue that the same thing is happening on the right, but that, once again, is part of what I mean by ‘no reference to reality.’
I hate to belabor the point, but There.Is.A.War.On., whether we choose to acknowledge that or not. I’d personally rather acknowledge it, deal with it, and, quite frankly, get it the hell over with. It isn’t going to go away if we ignore it: it will simply take longer and quite possibly cost more lives. I don’t like it, either, but there it is. Somehow, sitting around arguing about whether I’m required to pay Michael Moore before I’m allowed to criticize his film seems a little goofy at this point, since the bigger problem of whether we’ll have a film industry to distribute his work in, say, 10 years is one that is yet unsolved.
Here’s to hoping any detour we take isn’t too long.
Homeless Kitties Looking to Adopt Humans
Remember the kittens I mentioned? There were no pictures at the time. now there are pictures of the three that remain.
Aren’t they cute? You want one. You know you do. Well, if you live in a reasonable distance of Providence, RI you do.
Contact me if you are interested and I will put you in touch.
How Many Dead In Athens?
We’re watching the US gymnast tryouts and talking about the terrorism we expect will occur in Athens this summer. So that leads to the questions of what form(s) the terrorism will take, how many will be killed, and how many of them will be American athletes.
What do you think?
Update:
Not exactly; just changed the time stamp to put it closer to the top because I think a lot of people missed it and I’d really like to generate more comments.
Goofy Quizzes Make Great Filler Posts
Take the quiz: “Which Random Irish Gaelic Phrase Are You? ”
Pog mo thoin
Pog mo thoin - ‘Kiss my ass.’You’re one tough bastard, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they can kiss your ass. You enjoy fighting and causing grievous bodily harm. Hey! What are you lookin’ at, punk?
Via the Chaotic Cheesemistress
Malware and Trojans and Worms, Oh My
I was unsurprised by the recent news of an attack coming from random web sites. As I think I might have mentioned, things had been wonky enough for my big client that I wondered.
Today there is a guy there whose machine was so infested several days ago that it couldn’t access the internet at all. No viruses, just malware that took hours to ditch and came just short of resulting in an fdisking.
To my dismay, today he is back in what he reported to me as “can’t get on the internet” condition, and the manager reports as “can’t do anything” condition. Makes me wonder what ailed the machine that I didn’t find the last time…
CotC Delayed
Carnival of the Capitalists will be up sometime this evening at EGO, as Martin has been tied up and delayed from posting this morning as planned.
In the meantime, Peter at pc4media is set to receive your entries for the July 5 edition, which will be published the night of the 5th or morning of the 6th due to the holiday, via capitalists -at- elhide -dot- com. He has graciously stepped in to replace the original host, who retired from blogging.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
I’m pretty sure my husband approves of this result.
| Informationi |
| The Accidental Jedi is a restricted area. Authorised personel only |
From Go-Quiz.com
But I Don’t [i]Look[/i] Like Peter Parker…
| “ACHTUNG! |
| Jay Solo may actually be a spider-human hybrid |
From Go-Quiz.com
Via Aubrey Turner
Enemy of the State
We watched Enemy of the State last night, since it was Saturday and, until The Outer Limits starts there’s not really anything on. Excepting perhaps Hot Ticket, which I prefer to Ebert & Darn I Miss Siskel’s show.
Excellent movie, and I am happy to report Deb, on her first viewing of it, agreed. She’s right though, it is funny seeing it in a post-9/11 world.
Anyway, I noticed one freaky detail. When they looked up information about the bad guy, apparently via phone or internet from the “jar” following the description of it being totally disconnected from the outside world (missed that anomaly before), they showed his date of birth. He was born on 9/11, in 1940.
I think I’ll make a film! It will demonstrate that the evil islamists saw this movie and were inspired by that scene to pick 9/11 as the date for the major attacks. Think it’ll fly? Hey, it could have happened that way! At least as readily as Bush could have been behind 9/11 personally. Plus if I put it in a cleverly edited film, with the right things emphasized and the wrong things left out or glossed over, everyone will have to believe it.
*YAWN*
We have a nephew’s birthday party to attend today. Real Soon Now, in fact. In the immortal words of Kate Moseley, “sleep, I’d much rather sleep.” Even after two mugs of coffee.
Oh well. It gets the obligatory family stuff it’s necessary to do periodically out of the way.
Turns out this one won’t be in my brother’s apartment, but in his mother in law’s house down the road. So yesterday my brother calls to inform me of this, nonchalantly giving the address quite clearly on the machine, followed by a mumbly set of directions from what used to be an A&W Root Beer when we used to have a few of those around with no danger of co-mingling with KFC under the same roof.
I promptly looked the address up, saw where it is on a map, and know exactly where the street is.
Hours later, last night, my mother called and, in a panic-stricken, this is a dire emergency tone that is generally her norm so you assume it’s nothing serious automatically, left a message saying my brother had asked her to call and give me directions because the party had moved.
Before her voice had even stopped cajoling the machine with end of the world-toned directions, I declared “the internet exists, people! Give me an address and I can find it.”
Gotta love the internet. I know my mother would, if I could ever get her onto it. At least if she called because she thought she had obtained a virus, a dire tone might be appropriate.
Silly Sunday Talk Shows
I flipped back and forth through what Reagan called the silly Sunday talk shows for part of the duration of my first cup of coffee, eventually landing on a PBS show about Florence and at the time unprecedented construction therein as an escape prior to draining the cup, killing the power, and leaving the room.
Could they get more people on those shows who are not enemies of America? Stop importing aliens unfamiliar with the world as it is in 2004? Seeing discussion of issues can be interesting. You know, like exactly how to defeat the enemies of civilization, make the world safer and more prosperous, that kind of thing. There’s certainly room for disagreement on the details. Isn’t it a bit, well, rabid to focus so much hatred on one man that you forget who and where you are, and would rather endanger people and life as we know it to wave distorted discontent through the fabric of reality in hopes of liquifying the goals and principles on which he stands, unwitting risking the principles on which the we all stand.
This is why if I watch them at all, or watch the news at all, for that matter, it’s as a channel flipper, trying to catch the interesting bits while avoiding overexposure to antilife, reality-warping spewage.
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Do you wanna know a secret?
Oooh aaah oooh/Do you promise not to tell?/Oh-oh-oh…
*slaps self*
I had all of these visions, when I first set this site up separately, of having all of these wonderful insightful things to say, complete with daily updates and reminiscing taking me back to the moment that my jaw dropped at the sight of that second pink line.
Well, you can see what you got instead. Heh.
The secret is this...being pregnant is sort of boring.
Oh, I won’t deny that I’m tickled beyond words multiple times every day by one baby trick or another, to the point where my poor hubby probably wishes I’d quit telling him about it, or that he’s equally amused when he hears me telling her in my new mommy-voice that her presence is requested *anywhere* but on my bladder and I mean now, kiddo.
But how often can you really blog about that?
In any case, that was a rather long preface to what I really meant to say, which is probably way, way too much information for most of you, but which I am really, really excited about because to me it seems like a lovely sign, dammit, and that is that my, er, boobs are showing definite signs of being in working order. Like, freaky, dude.
This being a mammal thing is a real trip. As a matter of fact, I’ve decided that it is such a trip that it lends considerable weight to the argument that there is, indeed, a God. I think it’s probable that randomness and weeding would have produced an arrangement considerably less weird.
I’m just sayin’...
While Jim Is Away, Guests Have A Say
Jim is camping and has opened up his virtual doors to anyone who would like to guest post. Be nice, of course. I even took advantage; it was kind of fun.
Saturday Doggies
Mickey has the latest Carnival of the Dogs for your clicking pleasure. There’s some really cute stuff!
Attack of the Clowns
We watched Attack of the Clones last night. Deb had never seen it, and I, amazingly, had only seen it once in the theater. It was far better than I remembered it being. Which didn’t prevent us from making fun of parts of it, but she really liked it, cheese and all.
In part, I didn’t go see it again out of disappointment, but mainly it was some kind of inertia that prevented my returning to the theater. I was similarly disappointed with The Phantom Menace, if slightly less so, yet I returned to the theater to see it another seven times. Didn’t get bored with it until the first time I watched it on video.
I still have trouble seeing how he will fit everything that must happen in a third installment into the third installment without there being two of them or it being a 4 hour film. Which I suppose is my biggest reason for looking forward to it; to see whether, or how badly, Lucas blows it.
Still Poor
Sigh… Not only me, but no winners again, so it’s up to $210 million and I will feel compelled to buy a few more tickets for Mega Millions this week, despite knowing the odds.
